Jubilee Showcase Documentary

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Overview

Born in the crucible of the civil rights movement the gospel TV show, Jubilee
Showcase, uniquely bridged the worlds of gospel, blues and R & B and was a
precursor to modern soul music. Produced and hosted by a white Jewish
political activist, Sid Ordower, this program was a singularly pioneering show in
television history. For most of the artists who appeared on the program, it was
their first time on television, helping launch many of their prolific careers. Jubilee
Showcase was a literal “who´s who” of Gospel icons, including the likes of Mavis
Staples and The Staples Singers, Albertina Walker and The Caravans, the Soul
Stirrers, and Thomas A. Dorsey... Over 30 Grammy awards were handed out to
artists from Jubilee Showcase over the years, and the show was awarded an
Emmy for a, “pioneering project television,” yet the story of the pivotal role this
show and its producer played in the proliferation of Gospel Music has never been
told... until now.

Imagine finding out that someone, miraculously, had videotaped performances by Beethoven, Brahms, and Schubert, with the tapes now available for anyone who wished to see them. Or learning that someone had aimed a camera and microphone at Scott Joplin and Jelly Roll Morton, the tapes sure to offer insights on early ragtime and jazz. In a way, that’s what just happened in gospel music. For more than two decades, the long-defunct “Jubilee Showcase” TV program featured-and therefore preserved on tape-virtually everyone who mattered in gospel.

- THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, January 26, 1992

Broadcast from 1963 to 1984 in Chicago, Ordower´s show took the bold step of
presenting gospel music as an art form in its own right. This format emerged from
Ordower´s overlapping passions of politics and culture. He was an extraordinarily
effective political activist, working both in the civil rights movement with such
leaders as Dr. King and Rev. Jesse Jackson, and in electoral politics. Sid chose
to dedicate his life in service of others after experiencing the atrocities of war as a U.S. soldier, which includes the horrific loss of life on D-day. He subsequently
went to work altering the political and cultural landscape in America, playing a
decisive role in the elections of many political figures including U.S. Senator
Carol Mosely Braun (first African-American woman elected to the Senate),
Chicago´s Mayor Harold Washington (first African-American mayor of Chicago),
and U.S. Representative Danny K. Davis. According to the Chicago Defender
newspaper, Sid was “a champion of freedom and equality” and “possessed an
insatiable quest for the justice of every man.”

Sid Ordower was white and Jewish. The great majority of his guests on Jubilee
Showcase were African-Americans, many of them Baptists. This documentary
will explore how Ordower was able to cross racial and social boundaries, to
create a television program showcasing music that laid the foundation for much
of the music that evolved in the U.S. to this day.

Combining rarely seen excerpts from the show with modern-day interviews with
luminaries such as Mavis Staples, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Aretha Franklin, Timuel
Black and Michael Eric Dyson, this documentary will tell the remarkable story of a
time in which the worlds of gospel and civil rights merged and helped to re-shape
the American landscape.

EXCLUSIVE ACCESS TO HISTORIC COLLECTION

Sitting in a vault since
their original broadcasts - and now exclusively available to the producers of
Jubilee - these priceless bits of music history will be brought to a national
audience in a powerful and unique way. Through Sid Ordower´s family legacy,
the producers have exclusive access to the rare archive footage of the Jubilee
Showcase series -100 half-hour shows.

CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVISM & GOSPEL MUSIC

“Hello, I´m Sid Ordower and welcome to ‘Jubilee Showcase’, the program
presenting songs truly American: gospel, spiritual and jubilee songs - the great
inspirational music of the past and present.” Every Sunday morning for twentyone
years these words opened a unique local television show in Chicago - a half
hour of African-American gospel music hosted by a straight-laced white man who
seemed part reporter, part politician, part preacher all at once.

With longevity of two decades, perhaps the program owed its popularity to the
fact that it was not conceived as a religious program. There was no proselytizing,
except indirectly, in a song´s lyrics. However, Sid Ordower would occasionally
indulge in short sermon-like commentary promoting his message of unity and
love. This message was at the heart of Ordower´s agenda, working as a political
activist extraordinaire, both in the civil rights movement and as a progressive
behind-the-scenes policy maker in electoral politics.

During the 1940s Ordower returned from the Second World War incensed by the
racism and inequities that pervaded the United States. Still a young man, he ran
for congress as a Progressive Party candidate speaking from platforms with the
likes of W.E.B. DuBois and Paul Robeson. In 1953, he traveled to Jackson,
Mississippi to testify in defense of a condemned black man unjustly convicted of
raping a white woman. He was brutally beaten during that trip yet later
commented to reporters, “If it took a beating to save a life, then it was worth it.”
During the mid-1960s, Ordower organized with Martin Luther King, Jr. when the
SCLC campaigned in Chicago. In the 1970s and later, Ordower fought against
the corruption of the infamous Chicago Democratic Machine. Throughout his
career, Ordower significantly influenced politics and culture on a national scale.

Mavis Staples prepares for an interview for the Jubilee Showcase documentary

This documentary will be made up of THREE PARTS, each with an approximate
duration of forty minutes.

PART ONE will consist of the show´s tease and opening segment - clips from
Jubilee Showcase episodes and images from the civil rights movement. We will
see a powerful performance by one of the greats who appeared on the show. For
example, The Soul Stirrers singing “Oh, what a meeting,” an extremely soulful
slow-moving song with tight harmonies about meeting Jesus Christ. We will then
segue into a brief history of gospel music before the 1960s. The modern origin of
the word, “Jubilee” comes to us from a Negro folk song characterized by
references to a future ´happy time´ - a time of deliverance from trials and
tribulations - itself based on the weary hollers of the slaves in the fields of
southern plantations. This part of Jubilee will touch on Thomas A. Dorsey´s
invention of gospel in the 1930s, it´s lack of acceptance by the African-American
church community initially and how he combined Christian praise with the
rhythms of jazz and the blues.

PART TWO will consist of an in-depth look at Sid Ordower´s political life--how he
influenced the power structure of Chicago and the United States through his
political activism, and what motivated him to do this work. This part of the
program will show how his commitment to the cause of human rights led him to
create Jubilee Showcase, and thus show the connection between the church
communities in Chicago, political organizing, and gospel music. Ordower worked
with Operation PUSH quite a bit and had its leader, Rev. Jesse Jackson, appear
on Jubilee Showcase a couple of times. Sid and Rev. Jackson reflected about
Dr. King´s legacy in a talk-show format, which was atypical on the show, and
Rev. Jackson recited poetry backed by a full choir on another occasion... unique
and powerful footage that has never been seen by a national audience. As
Jubilee unfolds we will begin to see the relevance between Ordower´s inspiring -
yet secular - show introductions. He opened one show with: “Now is a great time
to be alive... Discoveries that have taken place within our lifetime are both
wonderful and terrifying.... And how we respond will depend upon how strong
within us is the desire to serve.”

We will also show how deeply entrenched this television show became in the
cultural fabric of Chicago. It was “church before church” for many African-
American Christian families, as well as routinely watched by white and nonreligious
people in the city. It was an institution in Chicago for 21 years. But, why
would a man like this keep a show about Gospel Music going for so long? How
did it further his goals as an activist? This approach will allow this film to segue
into the early episodes of Jubilee Showcase itself. These episodes - recorded in
black and white - were often dramatically lit, and have all the style and flavor of a
classic movie. For most of the legendary artists, it was their first time on
television, and greatly enhanced the awareness for Gospel Music, and the pioneers who performed it with tremendous talent.

PART THREE will focus on how Gospel Music has influenced the modern musical landscape embodied in such artists as Jennifer Hudson, Aretha Franklin,
Chaka Khan, Bobby Womack and R.Kelly. This film will also explore groundbreaking collaborations, such as with Prince producing a Mavis Staples´
album, Paul Simon and Jessy Dixon performing and recording for 8 years, and
Andrae Crouch working on Michael Jackson´s album, “Man in the Mirror.” We will
also produce original collaborations between Gospel artists who performed on
Jubilee Showcase and modern-day artists who were influenced by Gospel Music,
such as having Jennifer Hudson perform with Mavis Staples, or Willie Rogers of
The Soul Stirrers perform with Aretha Franklin. Viewers will also learn how
popular music and culture affected gospel music during the nineteen sixties and
early seventies. Jubilee Showcase footage of The Staple Singers will show them
using electric guitar with upbeat tempos in their music. Comparisons will be made
to other shared trends in popular music happening at the time. For example, Bob
Dylan´s electrification of folk music, was conceivably influenced by the Staple
Singers, who he idolized.

Throughout the documentary we will see culture evolve with fashions changing
as we move through the 60´s and 70´s. Even the manner in which Jubilee
Showcase was produced transformed over the years - editing, chroma-keying,
lighting, and shooting style all reflecting the evolving trends in society. Jubilee
will wrap up by tying together the several themes laid out during the program.

STYLE

Interviews will be dramatically lit and sometimes shot in an unconventional
manner, such as having a Gospel artist or a Civil Rights activist walk down a
street of their neighborhood in Chicago, ride in a car, or walk through a church
sanctuary while reflecting on their experiences. Original musical collaborations
between Gospel artists and modern-day artists will be shot with cinematic
aesthetics in mind, and multiple cameras as needed. The producers of Jubilee
also have access to a plethora of in-studio professionally shot still photographs to
help tell this story.

The powerful performance footage from Jubilee Showcase will be a mixture of
black and white (from the early 1960s) and color footage from the later years of
the program.

AUDIENCE

The producers of Jubilee hope to reach an audience as wide and diverse as
possible. This documentary will not advocate a particular religious point of view,
yet it will be full of songs of faith. It is our hope that the beauty and depth of
African-American Gospel music will appeal to a general audience. Viewers of this
film will learn about the tremendous influence Gospel music has had on the
modern-musical landscape to this day (some people call this Roots Music), with
particular emphasis on the artists who appeared on Jubilee Showcase.
Referencing performers such as Aretha Franklin, Jennifer Hudson, Bobby
Womack, Paul Simon, and Bob Dylan, will bring immediate appeal to a wide
swath of people who simply enjoy and are interested in music. No film to date
has made such connections so clear.

Another audience for Jubilee is that of people already inclined to activism and
bettering their communities. They will see examples of people who worked for a
better world not only through direct action, but also through music. Ordower’s
work in keeping Jubilee Showcase on the air for so long was the work of a
cultural warrior. In short, we feel this film will have the capacity to inspire people
across the board to understand one another’s perspectives of life to promote
peace and harmony, by drawing on the experiences of Sid Ordower — a man who
crossed social, economic, racial and religious boundaries throughout his life to
bring about mutual respect and understanding to humanity.

VOICE

Narration with interviews presented with journalistic objectivity. This is not a
program that presents an explicit point of view, but rather, an implicit one - an
opinion that regardless of your beliefs - gospel music is a high art form; and that
the civil rights movement was fought on many fronts, political, spiritual, and
cultural.